Archive for May, 2011

I agree with your caller about The Bolt Report. It is a good program and will probably do very well. Andrew needs a little time to become more comfortable with his personal "to camera" pieces, but he really is right at home when talking to others. Today's panel is former federal treasurer Peter Costello and former NSW minister Michael Costa. I can't wait!

In regards to the timeslot, while it is on at 10am in the capital cities, unfortunately in regional areas Southern Cross Ten are running music programming at that time of day, so for those of us in regional areas, we have to wait for the 4:30pm replay. I record the replay and watch it later as it clashes with the football for me.

Regards,Samuel Gordon-StewartCanberra

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Did I hear you telling me that it's a cold eight degrees in Sydney this morning? Well without being too much of a smart alec, I'd have to say that eight degrees would be positively balmy compared to Canberra right now. We were expecting -3 tonight…and as I write this we have already reached -4 at the airport. It doesn't get above eight degrees down here until at least 9am.

Anyway, that Baz bloke who rang earlier, the bloke who "works for the company that does the management of the something" and claims to be earning the same salary now that he was earning in 1995 when he worked for some other company. Well, either he is lying and has received payrises over time, or he is on the same money because he previously worked in a better paying job in 1995 and would be earning more if he'd stayed in that job. Either way, he earns more than I do per hour, so he should stop complaining and learn what his company does.

By the way, did you know John that Sir Paul McCartney is listed by the Guiness Book Of Records as the single most successful commercial songwriter in history, and that his song 'Yesterday' has been covered by more than 2,200 artists. And I'm not sure if you mentioned it or not, but today is the one year anniversary of the successful end of Jessica Watson's solo around-the-world voyage. She became the youngest person to sail around the world solo, three days before her 17th birthday.

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At long, long last, Canberra has been saved from the wrath of Chief Turnip Jon Stanhope. Stanhope resigned today, leaving the cyclonic one in his wake.

ACT chief minister Jon Stanhope is retiring.

Australia’s longest serving government leader, who turned 60 last month, was elected to the top post in November 2001.

Which would make his tenure ten years…so not the longest, but anyway, we continue…

Mr Stanhope described the jobs as a privilege.

“I would like to thank the people of Canberra for the opportunity they’ve given me to represent them,” he told reporters on Monday.

“I consider it a privilege to have been granted this role.”

He also thanked his successor Katy Gallagher for her unstinting support and friendship.

“I quite simply could not have more faith in Katy’s capacity,” he says.

Mr Stanhope thanked voters in his ACT electorate on Ginninderra, in northern Canberra, where he lives with his wife Robyn.

“I particularly acknowledge and express my deep gratitude to the people of Belconnen and my electorate of Ginninderra, the community which Robyn and I have lived for the last 37 years and where we brought up our children,” he says.

The same people he told to be quiet when he was talking to them at Belconnen Mall because they were silly and didn’t understand the issues? Well I suppose they did vote for him…I will never understand why.

Anyway, the article just gets stranger from there. We start with Stanhope’s bizarre dreams (and you thought mine were odd).

“I’m confident that with the splendid leadership which Katy can provide, the territory … will ultimately achieve if not statehood, constitutional equality with the states.”

Will never happen, and rightly so. We are a territory of the federal government based on land which originally belonged to New South Wales. A decent chunk of our land is controlled through a love/hate relationship between the federal government’s National Capital Authority and our own Legislative Assembly. Realistically we should have one or two local councils running our territory rather than the psuedo-state government that we do have…maybe then we wouldn’t have a grossly oversized public service of the ACT Government, assisting them to do wasteful jobs which should never have been done by them anyway.

And then the article continues…apparently Jon wants to hang on to the one thing which worked well for him during his time at the top.

Mr Stanhope acknowledged many Canberrans were still coming to terms with the 2003 bushfires, which killed four people and destroyed about 500 homes.

“The government, I believe, responded well in the face of this crisis,” he says.

On the day…well no, they were slow to act when they knew the threat was coming. We had the whole debacle of them driving to the Nolan Gallery to save paintings long before they even bothered to tell Canberrans that something might be wrong. The media were on the ball that day, the emergency services did what they could, but the government was found wanting. Still, on the back of the publicity which Jon Stanhope got for jumping out of a helicopter and saving a drowning man around that time, and his supposed decisiveness on the day (we only found out later how big a lie that was), he was popular for quite some time.

Stanhope’s government has been riddled with budgetary mismanagement, incredible delays, his trademark “consultation” process where he talks to nobody and makes his own decision (decisiveness is good, pretending to consult and then blaming everyone else for the eventual mess is not), and a gazillion public artworks which are completely unnecessary and an eyesore to boot.

On Facebook, 2CC have asked “Should we commission a piece of art to honour the work of ACT Chief Minister Jon Stanhope?”. My answer sums up what I think of Stanhope’s reign of terror. “No, we should pull down all the ones he put up and send him the bill for their removal, and perhaps for their original construction as well.”

I’m not really looking forward to having Cyclone Katy as Chief Minister (the turnip badge is reserved for Stanhope)…but at least now that we have the inexplicably popular Stanhope out of the way, Canberra might, maybe, perhaps, if we’re lucky, see fit to elect Zed Seselja and his far more competent team to clean up the mess next year. One can hope.

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I knew I forgot to write about something last night, but couldn’t work it out for the life of me. That is until you read out the email after mine which was about smoke detectors.

You mentioned your very sensitive smoke detector last night, and it reminded me of the smoke detector in my Nanny’s house. This was just outside the kitchen door and was very sensitive, so she usually cooked with the kitchen door closed, however even when she did this, all she had to do was open that door and the smoke alarm would go off. It would also go off if she opened the oven door when she was cooking a roast. I was quite young at the time and while it didn’t scare me, I didn’t like the noise at all, and wondered why the alarm wasn’t in a better position.

Also John, I had a very strange dream last night which I thought might interest you. In the dream I was driving north from the NSW south coast with some relatives and we had the AFL on the radio, which was being called by Rex Hunt. We were driving up a hill when we realised that we had reached Indonesia and there was an airport on the other side of the hill. The cockpit of a plane was separated from the rest of a plane and was on the right hand side of the road, and everyone in the car commented that this seemed a bit unusual.

Once we got to the top of the hill, a plane flew overhead and the runway was visible, however there was a tree before the runway so the plane had to suddenly change direction, and landed in a paddock to the left of the airport. Just then, the car started levitating, and the dream ended.

I hope you have a good mother’s day with Rhonda today. Nattie (the little fluffy dog) and I will be making a trip to the bakery today to get some apple pies with cream for Mum.

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Well it sure is getting cold now, I had to scrape ice off my windscreen after work this morning. Welcome to winter I think.

In regards to the payments to our surviving prisoners of war, well it’s about time. I think the reasons it hasn’t happened to date are twofold. Firstly, the Whitlam government was an anti-war ggovernment, so of course they would refuse to pay special amounts to our soldiers. Once that stigma wore off, I think governments just waited until there weren’t many POWs left so that it wouldn’t cost much.

I hope you had a wonderful time on the cruise yesterday.

Regards, Samuel Gordon-Stewart Canberra

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I was very pleased today to hear the news that American special forces have killed Osama Bin Laden, the dreadful man behind the September 11 attacks, among other atrocities. US President Barack Obama made the announcement a couple hours ago.

My congratulations and thanks go out to Mr. Obama, the brave men and women who were responsible for making this happen, and former President George W. Bush who set the wheels in motion for this very important mission.

Not surprisingly, a large crowd gathered outside the White House to celebrate when the news broke.

This momentous achievement marks a victory for America, for people who seek peace around the world, and for all those who lost loved ones on September 11, 2001. The fight against terror goes on, but tonight America has sent an unmistakable message: No matter how long it takes, justice will be done.

Hear hear!

Under the circumstances, I think this song is appropriate. Weird Al Yankovich’s KOMP Morning Show’s “Bin Laden Bomb Song”. Seeing as I didn’t get around to awarding a Musician Of The Week award yesterday, it can go to Weird Al Yankovich the crew from the then-KOMP Morning Show (see revision in comment #4 below).